


yesterday's ahead of me (tomorrow's just a memory)

by jdphoenix



Series: terragenesis [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 12:14:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6753385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Jemma woke up not knowing where (and, occasionally, when) she was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	yesterday's ahead of me (tomorrow's just a memory)

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written and posted after the first two chapters of "he told me I was holy" (which is the next work in this series) but should stand well enough on its own to be read first.

The last thing Jemma remembers is the bright light of Susanna Ardrey’s powers. It was so strong Jemma couldn’t even see the poor girl’s knife wound through it and was forced to rely on the feel of blood pumping against her fingers to know whether she was succeeding in stemming the flow. (She wasn’t.) 

That memory makes the darkness surrounding her all the darker and she is suddenly months and light years away, waking up in the dark of a cave, grasping for her weapon lest the _thing_ take her while she cannot see.

Voices cry out and there’s a great shuffling like many bodies moving at once.

It’s not completely dark. There’s a fire burning in the center of the room and torches on the walls and all in between are men and women who stare at her from messes of hair and furs and bones so strange she can’t tell what’s them and what’s their clothes.

“Hello,” she says cautiously. A man - or she thinks he is from the beard - extracts himself from the crowd. His feet crunch on the dirt floor as he very cautiously draws nearer.

He speaks a word she doesn’t recognize.

“I’m sorry,” she says and that gets her another reaction. The assembled people seem awestruck by her every move. “I don’t understand you.”

The man speaks again, a whole string of words.

Jemma shakes her head. “I don’t know what you’re saying. Here.” She reaches for her pocket to grab the ATCU badge Coulson gave her and all the rest of them to carry around until SHIELD’s image can be mended. Her fingers go numb before they’ve pulled it from her pocket.

Susanna Ardrey is laying on the ground behind her, her skin pale, her eyes open and sightless.

“ _No_ ,” Jemma breathes. She falls on Susanna, hunting for a pulse she knows she won’t find.

The poor girl was only twenty-three, born and raised in Wiltshire. She had a perfectly normal life - a middling job as a cashier at a grocery store, a boyfriend who she often fought with, a mum she saw every other weekend - and she might have been able to keep that, might have been one of the lucky ones after she ate the wrong piece of fish at lunch today. Except now she’s dead.

Guilt washes over Jemma. The first time she saw this girl, she was annoyed that her transition had caused a postponement in her and Fitz’s night together. The last time she saw her, the poor girl had just been stabbed by her boyfriend. And now she’s dead.

She brushes the hair back from Susanna’s face as tears sting her eyes. “I have to call my team,” she says, pitching her words towards the people behind her even though she knows they won’t understand. “There’s no danger, but the body needs to be quarantined.”

As expected, the crowd rumbles unintelligibly. Jemma sighs and pulls out her phone, tapping her code into the screen while she adjusts Susanna’s jacket to hide the worst of the blood. That done, she makes to call Fitz, but finds she’s without a signal. Which shouldn’t be possible on planet Earth.

“No,” Jemma breathes. “No no no no _no_.” She is _not_ stranded in space. This is not happening _again_.

She rushes for the door - which takes her through the frightened crowd of onlookers. (At least one man throws himself between her and the others, while another leaps into the mass like he’s stage diving.) The night air is cool and the breeze smells like spring. When she tips her head back there is only one moon, looking very much like her own, and she spots Orion’s belt with no trouble at all.

She rests her hands on her knees, breathing deep. So she’s on Earth. And her phone isn’t working. For some reason.

Perhaps Susanna’s powers knocked something out of place or left the air ionized so she can’t get a signal. Yes, that makes sense. She’ll wait until sun-up and try again - possibly from the top of that hill she can just make out against the stars. (They’re very bright stars, brighter even than the night they spent parked outside the Sandbox.)

A faint voice draws Jemma’s attention back to the Earth and she finds a child staring up at her with all the same wonder the adults showed and none of the fear. The child holds out a plate of food in offering.

“Thank you,” Jemma says and reaches to take a roll of dark bread just as a woman breaks from the crowd still inside, rushing for the child. Both of them freeze at the same moment but it’s the woman who cowers back, bowing her head as if in deference to Jemma.

It’s much better, she thinks as she takes the roll, than being stranded on Maveth was. There may not be a sun (yet) but there are people and food and fire. She’ll be fine here for a few hours.

 

 

\-----

 

 

The pain is so all-encompassing that she doesn’t know when she wakes or if she was ever asleep at all. She tries to move, to alleviate the worst of it, but it’s inside her, burning her bones and organs and muscles while her skin freezes solid.

A voice speaks. She doesn’t know it or the words but it sounds proud, haughty, as though she is barely worth its attention. It’s asking her a question.

“I don’t understand,” she cries, hoping to make the pain stop. “Please, I don’t understand what you’re-”

A sharp pain wraps around her ear. She thinks she must be bleeding, that it’s been cut off or burned or _something_ , but as her nerves settle around the hurt, she realizes it’s only that something’s been affixed to her ear.

The voice speaks again and again she hears the nonsense words, but above them she also hears, “What are you?”

She sighs. She’s still burning, still freezing, but she hasn’t heard English in _weeks_ and that relief is enough to cut through a great deal of her pain. “Human,” she says. “From Earth. O-or Midgard. That’s what the Asgardians call it.”

A blue face appears between the glaring lights and dark shadows that fill her vision. “Asgardian?” Pain erupts again as strong fingers grip her chin.

“No,” another voice says, “there’s no sign of it.”

The hand releases her to draw a single finger down her throat (it presses so heard she gags) and down between her breasts. It’s then that she realizes she’s naked and tied down. A wave of chill fear washes over her but the finger stops above her naval.

“You are _not_ Asgardian,” the first voice accuses.

She shakes her head frantically. “No. No. But I’ve met-” she gulps, breathing is difficult- “a few. Three,” she amends.

The finger presses harder still before falling away. “What are you?”

“I told you. I’m human.”

The voices scoff and she decides on a different tactic.

“You’re Kree, aren’t you?” she asks. Perhaps that was the wrong question because the next thing she knows, she’s pinned with a withering stare.

“How do you know of us?”

“How does she know of Asgardians?” the other mutters.

“Everyone knows about Asgardians.” She shifts against the bindings holding her down and finds them unfortunately solid. “Loki brought the Chitauri to Earth and Thor helped stop them. And then there was the Convergence just a few years ago; Thor stopped that too - everyone saw that.”

The other Kree bends so close Jemma could count his dark blue freckles. He sniffs at her and, when he speaks, she gets the impression he’s not talking to her even though his spittle falls on her cheeks. “The Convergence? How would one of these rodents know of that? And when it’s still a century awa-” He blinks, his derisive eyes sharpening suddenly on her face.

“What?” the first one asks.

“Ohhhh,” the rude one says. He sounds, much as Jemma hates to think it, a lot like Fitz when he’s just figured something out. Jemma thinks it might be her.

“What?” she demands when he doesn’t answer his friend. The friend shoots her a glare, which she ignores.

The rude one is behind her, where she can’t see and it takes several seconds for him to crow in triumph. “I knew it! I told you she was human.”

“Well of course I-” Jemma is ignored.

“She is _post_ -human,” the Kree says. The other shoots her a sideways look. “She,” the rude one goes on, “is a _future_ human. Her DNA doesn’t match up with what we know of them because it’s advanced by an entire stellar cycle.”

That cold chill of fear is back and much as Jemma would like to struggle against her bonds again, she’s afraid to under the watch of the suddenly interested Kree. She remembers falling asleep now. She remembers the lights in the sky over the village, the ship chasing her down, the sight of a half-built Stonehenge rising up above her as she lost consciousness.

“Bloody hell,” she mutters. She’s stranded in the _past_.

 

 

\-----

 

 

The blanket over her is warm and heavy. Combined with the exhaustion in her bones, it’s plenty to keep her clinging to sleep long after light has started slipping past her eyelids. The slide of the door opening and closing however, jolts her sharply back to wakefulness.

This isn’t just any room she’s in, it’s _Hive’s_. The Kree _gave_ her to him like a gift and he brought her back here to- to-

She doesn’t even want to think it.

He stands just inside the door, watching her. The air of menace he wears around him like a cloak is gone - or not yet there, she should say - but she spent six and a half months alone on a planet with only him and Will; she’d recognize him anywhere, no matter whose face he wears.

He approaches her cautiously and she curls her legs beneath her, ready to spring out of the bed if he dares try anything. (It occurs to her that she would never willingly have entered his bed. Last she remembers, in fact, she was perched in a corner of the room, watching him sleep. How she got here, she has no idea at all.) He sits on the very edge of the bed, giving her his side rather than facing her head-on. One hand is curled loosely over his knees and the other rests on the blanket between them. It’s this one he lifts to his chest when he says, “Alveus.”

She knows that was his name - or one of them - but it strikes her as (she will not call him  _sweet_ ) odd that he’s going to the trouble of introducing himself to her.

She rubs at her ear and feels, as she knew she would, that the translation device the Kree gave her during her numerous interrogations is gone. She never thought she’d miss the bloody thing.

Hive or Alveus or who _ever_ he wants to be frowns at her ear in something masquerading as sympathy. “Alveus,” he says again. He holds his palm out to her, careful to keep his hand far from touching her. “Dea.”

She frowns, stumbling over the word. The meaning comes to her suddenly and she shakes her head. “No. No no no. _Not_ a goddess.” She chuckles at the very idea, remembering how they doted on her in that village.

Her amusement vanishes suddenly. Did he guess at her identity by reading those memories in her mind?

She watches him closely, wondering if he’s reading her thoughts _now_ , but he gives no sign. He only stares as he has been, with curiosity and seemingly eternal patience. The truth is, she doesn’t even know that Hive _can_ read her mind, only that he can influence them - and, if he can’t, sitting here willing him to will only make her look like an imbecile.

She places her hand against her chest. “Jemma.”

“Jey-mah,” he says carefully and she can’t help a smile at the way it curls around his tongue. He tries a few more times, but never quite succeeds.

She settles more comfortably on the bed as he makes his attempts, wrapping her arms around her knees. It’s nice to hear her own name, even if it’s all wrong.

Suddenly his eyes are on her again and there’s something in them, something heavy she doesn’t want to identify. He reaches for her and she scrambles back until her head hits the wall.

His eyes shut and he fists his hand on the mattress. Slowly, something cold seeps under her skin. It’s familiar, like the feel of sand in her shoes or threadbare clothes over her shoulders, and like them, she doesn’t like it at all. Apology pulls at her heartstrings and a peace settles her pulse.

The feelings aren’t her own.

“ _Stop it_ ,” she pleads softly.

He turns his face to her and opens his mouth but emits no sound. He looks helpless.

They can’t speak to one another. She can only barely understand pieces of his language - one that will, eons from now, evolve into one she has a passing familiarity with - and he can understand none of hers. Asking for one of the translation devices is out of the question as well; the Kree have sent her to him for one purpose and they don’t see much cause for discussion in it. That leaves them only one means of communication: his powers.

She hides her face behind her knees. His presence in her head is like a blanket warmed by her own skin and feeling it slip slowly away is just as unpleasant. Reluctantly, she dredges up feelings of tentative acceptance, allowing them to settle on the surface of her thoughts. The slide of his presence halts and when she peeks out at him, he appears frozen on the edge of hope.

She narrows her eyes, adding an aimless warning. He nods slowly and she hopes he understands she won’t always want him reading her feelings. While she’s at it, she thinks, looking at the bed between and around them, she hopes he doesn’t think this means she’s willing to do _that_ , no matter what the Kree want of them.

He rises gracefully to his feet. His smile is thin and his head bowed. He backs away to the corner she fell asleep in and settles there, seemingly content.

Hive, the monster who terrorized her for months, who killed Will, is a gentleman. Jemma has no idea what to do with that.

 

 

\-----

 

 

A sense of peace wraps around her even as she struggles to pull herself up from the depths of sleep. She smiles and fights against it.

“Shhh,” he says, the sound tickling her shoulder. “Sleep.”

She turns her face to blindly kiss his hair and opens her eyes. Then blinks. “Where are we?” she asks.

He tips his head back and the whole mess of furs around them shifts. More sunlight filters in as they sway. They’re not on the ground.

Old fears scramble up her throat and that soothing peace returns, emphasized when he rests his forehead against hers.

“I have you,” he says. And then again, more firmly. “ _I have you_.”

She wraps her arms up around his ribs and breathes deep, letting his warm scent fill her up. She’s safe so long as she’s with him.

Not that she’s _un_ safe without him. Thanks to the masters, she’s plenty dangerous on her own these days, but it’s nice to have a little extra insurance.

When she’s settled, he looks up again, inviting her to do the same. Sunlight is made dreamy by the thick tree cover and for a brief moment she’s blinded by it until she spots a branch that’s moving impossibly.

“Oh!” she gasps, watching the belly of the snake slide out of sight behind a mess of flowers. She can’t tell from this angle what its coloring is and there’s little chance she could identify it accurately ten thousand years before any standard classifications even exist, but the chance to see one up close is almost too tempting.

“You want one, don’t you?” Alveus asks once it’s out of sight.

She gives him her most innocent smile. He only shakes his head.

“You are lethal in every way, my goddess,” he says, “even in your joys.”

Now that she’s awake and aware, the humidity is making the furs cradling them near unbearable. She squirms, eager to be free.

“Of course,” she says as he extracts himself with the ease of practice.

He crouches on a nearby branch while she clings to the ropes netting the furs in place.

“It’s why I like _you_ ,” she reminds him.

He grins and holds out his hand to her. She takes it gratefully, allowing him to pull her back into his arms. Another day lies ahead of them - full of running and fighting and hiding from the masters.

He kisses her temple and rests his head there. “You do not regret me?”

She smiles and nuzzles him. “No. Not at all.”

 

 

\-----

 

 

She’s woken up like this before, in a place she doesn’t know, with no idea how she came to be here. It’s happened more times than she’d like to consider, in fact, and she’s reached the point at which she can rise above the indignity of it.

She takes the time necessary for her eyes to adjust - the light is unnaturally bright and if that wasn’t proof enough that she’s been captured by the masters, the line running fluids into her arm proves it. Curiously, there are no bonds holding her down, which either means they are incredibly stupid or there are more certain restraints in the walls and doors. She sincerely hopes it’s the former.

She sits up carefully and feels her stomach cramp around its own hollowness. She’s been here for a while then. All the more reason to leave quickly.

She pulls the line from her arm with a fleeting wince - it’s the least of the pain she’s suffered thanks to the masters - and scoots to the edge of the bed to find her feet. Something about the room strikes her as familiar, now that she takes it all in, but she can’t quite place it. Perhaps she was in a prison like this before they remade her, but all she remembers of that time is the cold dark of the infinity room.

The memory of that place stiffens her spine and she finds her voice to call out to whoever may watch from beyond the blank windows. “Well? Whatever you want to discuss must be terribly important, why don’t you come in and tell me all about it?” she asks sweetly. 

There is no answer.

She finds the strength to walk the width of the room. There is more than just the bed - a sitting area that seems out of place in a Kree ship and dark marks on the floor that leave her wondering what else (or _who_ else) once occupied this place. She doesn’t sit, she moves. She needs to _keep_ moving or her nervousness will boil over into destruction and she doesn’t want to waste her strength until she has one of the masters to release it on. She’s been itching to try her powers against them for months now, but none have been foolish enough to come near; she hopes today she will finally get her chance.

Alveus always pouts playfully when she tells him of her plans to kill the Kree. _He_ wants to kill them, he says. And she always responds with a suggestion that he hurry about it before she gets to them all first. Quite often that is the point at which he will wrap her in his arms and kiss her until her laughter turns to moans.

“He will come for me,” she promises. “Even if you’ve finally devised a cage capable of holding me-” of that there is a great deal of doubt; she has yet to meet the Kree lock she can’t outsmart- “he will come and when he does, he will-”

“Simmons?”

The name and the accent both have been so long from her experience that she almost can’t make sense of them. But it is _her_ name and an accent that was once almost as familiar to her as her own and then of course there is the voice…

She turns and finds him standing in the small room attached to the- the _pod_. She _does_ know this place. She’s seen it, worked in it.

“Fitz?” she asks, tears thickening her voice. Behind him is May, she can see the woman is holding his arm to keep him from daring to come inside. And through the window now, she can see Coulson and- and Lincoln. It’s not possible. It _can’t_ be possible, she’s never supposed to see them again. They’re all far, far away. Eons from her. If they’re here now, if _she_ is here with them, in the _pod_ , in the _Playground_ …

Her knees give out. The heel of her hand smarts where it tries to catch her and her other was no help at all, too busy clutching at her stomach as realization hits her.

She’s back. She’s in the twenty-first century - in a time so far beyond the other that they actually _count centuries_ \- and that means that everything and every _one_ she left behind is not only gone, but long since dead.

She’s never been given to shows of emotion, but for this, for the loss of her world, her _life_ , she screams until there is no breath left in her.

 

 


End file.
